Advice office queue; Khotso House photo: Gill de Vlieg
Chaos in the administration of black townships
wpvery day hundreds of people pass through Black JUJ Sash advice offices throughout the country. They come with the problems they face in living under South Africa's apartheid structures. Each problem is a mic-
rocosm of the full picture of life in South Africa for blacks at this time. Together these problems are there- fore a barometer of national economic, social and political developments.
In the Advice Office Report for Johannesburg for 1984 SHE EN A DUNCAN reaches some further dis- turbing conclusions . . .
Chaos and confusion in black urban townships has in- creased markedly over the last year. We do not refer only to the protests and unrest which were the mark of 1984 but to the total lack of predictable and efficient ad- ministration.
There has never been justice in local government for black people because the administering authority has never been representative. The government's attempt to introduce representative local authorities has been to- tally rejected and is effectively inoperative in the Trans- vaal metropolitan areas.
Sheena Duncan
• Bureaucratic confusion and corruption
We have often reported in the past on bureaucratic inef- ficiency, obstruction, maladministration and corruption but wc have not before experienced such a complete state of disorderliness in administrative structures.
The buck is passed from one office to the next, from one government department to another, from Town Council to Development Board and back again. People cannot possibly know with whom complaints can be laid or how they may obtain redress of wrongs done to them.
Those who have money learn how to manipulate the sys- tem. Those without money are unable to be in control of their lives in any sense whatsoever. There is no or- derly government. There is only repression, victimisa- tion and disintegration of community. (See examples in box, page 20)
• Housing hazards
Housing waiting lists have become meaningless. New housing is expensive and its allocation becomes a ques- tion of who can pay.
Apart from the actual purchase or rental price of new housing stock there are complaints about the money
18 THE BLACK SASH—August 1985
which has to be passed under the counter to someone or other in order to be given preference. It is almost impos- sible to find ways of exposing this practice. Those who have paid a bribe or received one are obviously not going to admit to doing so. Those who have observed such happenings do not want to jeopardise their own position by making statements. The rest is hearsay. Those who pay bribes and those who receive them do well out of the system- The victims arc the poor and the less well paid — the majority.
People who have been renting a house for decades suddenly find that the house has been given to their lod- gers without their knowledge.
People are unlawfully evicted from their homes with- out due cause and without proper notice. If they know*
where to go for help immediately they can establish their right of occupation but too often they have been out in the street with all their possessions for months before someone tells them where to go for assistance and then it is too late. There is no proof of the story. Some other family is in occupation. There is no redress.
It is not only in the townships that people have money extorted from them. People complain that they have been told that they must pay R150 for a birth certificate or R50 for a pass or 50 cents to get into the queue. Cor-
ruption of this kind can be prevented- Complaints to senior officials will bring prompt action but many people are frightened to complain and others say they cannot
reach the senior officials because the clerks will not let them through.
Around the edges of the official structures flourish the entrepeneurs making a killing from the confusion. These strange businesses with strange names, sometimes found in expensive city office blocks, sometimes in the seedier ends of town, make a fortune out of selling forged docu- ments, guarantees of legal aid to persons arrested, mira- cle homes to be built in far away homeland places, stamps in a pass permitting one to remain in town and to work.
• Legislative confusion
Added to all this is considerable legislative confusion.
The Black Communities Development Act is now in op- eration. It repealed most sections of the Urban Areas Act except for the crucial influx control provisions. *Reg- ulations framed under now defunct sections of the old Act are still valid and are deemed to have been made under equivalent provisions of the new Act but in some cases there are no equivalent provisons so the regula-
tions are invalid.
• Administrative confusion
Different responsibilities of the Department of Co-oper- ation and Development and of the Development (Ad- ministration) Boards are transferred elsewhere. Labour
Bureaux have become Placement Centres falling under the Department of Manpower — but only for some
people, those with urban rights. The pass Courts now fall under the Department of Justice, The Reference
Bureau and its crucial functions of black population re- gistration and documentation now falls under the De- partment of Home Affairs. Officials in Co-operation and Development who have been designated as Passport Control Officers who should be Home Affairs arc appa-
* see page 21
rently still Co-operation and Development. Are Passport Control Officers who are also policemen, Law and Order or Home Affairs? Township superintendents are now employees of Town Councils; the officials re- main the same. The controlling authority is different.
It is impossible for the public to know any longer who is responsible for what. One wonders whether the offi- cials themselves know. Many just make up their own rules as they go along in flagrant defiance of the law.
Mr N who has a Section I0( I )(a) qualification in a small town in the Transvaal also had a job and accommodation in the Vaal Triangle. He was refused registration be- cause 4wc have enough people here*. The law is that the Labour Officer may not refuse to register a person with urban rights provided he has a job and accommodation.
Contradictory official statements are made all the time. Promises arc not kept. Costs escalate but improve- ments do not materialise. Overcrowding grows worse daily.
White South Africa should not be surprised that black communities are refusing to co-operate any longer with a system which denies them the most basic sense of order, community and participation.
• Hardships for millions of homeland 'nationals'
The insecure position of all black foreigners in South Af- rica was outlined in last year's report. This year it has be- come clear that Xhosa, Venda and Tswana people who
are resident in the homeland at the time of indepen- dence are in the same position as proper foreigners from neighbouring countries which were never part of South Africa.
Mrs M P M was refused permission to live with her 10(l)(a) husband in Welkom. She was told she was not entitled to claim any legal rights in terms of Section
10(l)(c) because she came to Welkom from Transkei after independence. She was told to return home and to make application through the Transkei Foreign Affairs Department in Umtata to the South African Depart- ment of Foreign Affairs for permission to enter South Africa and to reside with her husband in Welkom. Our legal advice is that this is a correct interpretation of the law. this affects the future prospects of all the 4 701 000 black people who are resident in the independent home- lands. They have been legally and factually completely dispossessed of their birthright as South African citi- zens,
• Hardships in influx controlf
Influx control continues to be enforced with ever more rigidity. More and more unemployed people are coming to the advice office every day. Those who have urban rights but arc without work are in a pitiful condition of anxiety and need, but their condition is nothing like as desperate as that of people who have no permission to he in town or to seek work. They arc in constant danger of arrest. Employers are now unwilling to offer even a casual day's work to a person whose pass is not in order.
The law prevents them from helping themselves. Many do not know where the next meal will come from.
The wives and children of Section 10(l)(b) qualified people whose legal rights were taken away from them by the 1983 amendment to Section 10 come to the office for help in a steady trickle.
Only those who can prove that they came to town be-
THE BLACK SASH — August 1985 19
fore August 26 1983 and took up residence before that date'with husbands who had acquired a Section 10( 1 )(b) right before that date have a legal right to remain. The rest are not permitted to stay together as families unless the breadwinner has a house of his own.
In the past a man was not able to put his name on the waiting list for a house until his dependents were legally in the area so none of these families are on the waiting lists. The shortage of accommodation in all urban areas is critical and, as stated above only those with high salaries have any hope of getting a house.
Government keeps control of the amount of housing which is provided for black people in urban areas by limiting the amount of land made available and by a pol- icy which prices accommodation out of reach of the majority of people. There can be no free market princi- ples in the housing market as long as townships cannot expand outside their existing borders. There can only be a situation where costs escalate to levels far beyond the
real value of the houses concerned and where the poor remain homeless and overcrowding in existing houses increases.
• Warning — the future under the n e w Urbanisation Bill
It is not yet known what the Government's new Urbani- sation Bill will be like but it will be a disaster if permis- sion to remain in town is made dependent on possession of 'approved accommodation". If this is what govern- ment intends, influx control will become even more se- vere and more rigid than it is now.
Under the present system a person's Section 10 rights exist irrespective of whether he has a job or a place to stay. Any attempt to pretend reform by introducing 'or- derly urbanisation' as a euphemism for a more efficient form of influx control will be a betrayal of the first mag- nitude and will be unenforceable. People will simply not co-operate. The current disorder will appear to be a Sun- day School picnic compared to what will happen in re- sponse to any such move.
Influx Control must go immediately and in its entirety and "orderly urbanisation' programmes should be insti-
tuted to provide the land and essential services which will be required. The money at present expended in try-
ing to enforce the unenforceable would go a long way to- wards providing for such programmes.
Too many white businessmen are saying that influx control must go but must be replaced by a system of con- trol based on work and accommodation. It sounds a very much more acceptable proposition. The words are softer and seem to be reasonable but it is a most dangerous de- lusion which must be abandoned at once.
Advice office workers Bertha Reinashowitz (left) and Elizabeth Roweftntl a way through the multitude of regulations
• • A
Examples of the effects of
disorderly government victimisation and repres-
sion
Mr A M N lives in Tembisa and qualifies to remain on the East Rand in terms of Section 10(1) (a). In De- cember 1983 he travelled to Mozambique by car for his annual holiday. He was in possession of a South African travel document issued to him in November 1983. On January 7, 1984 he was detained at Komatipoort on his way home.
He was held at the White River police station and alleges severe ill-treatment. After a week he was taken to Pretoria where his fingerprints were checked. The Reference Bureau record evidently supported his claim to have been born on the East
Rand. He was taken to his father's house in Tembisa where his brother was asked to identify him from amongst nine other men in the van* His brother and a sub-tenant in the house did identify him but he was not released. He was taken back to Pretoria for another period, then all the way back to White River where he was released on January 22,1984,
On January 10, 1985 the advice office received a telephone call from a friend of Mr M. Mr M had again visited Mozambique over Christmas and had been de- tained again on his return,
\ L L * ' •
- * . • • . • . . . . - - •
• * l »
, ' . * , ' - L ,
h " ' • ' " . ' L " " L " X ' L
Mr L was born on a farm in the Kaap Muiden district and has lived on farms and worked on farms all his life.
in 1977 he made the short journey from Kaap Muiden to Komatipoort to buy clothes. He was de- tained at the Komatipoort police station. He alleges that he was forced to put his fingerprints on a state- ment. He doesn't know what the statement said. He was sentenced to four months imprisonment and de- ported to Mozambique. He came back because he does not belong in that country. He has had no iden- tity documents since that time. He has to prove that he was born in South Africa. It is almost impossible for him to do so. The Reference Bureau no longer ac- cepts affidavits as proof of birth.
' . . . . . ' . . . . • • •
Throughout the year there has been a steady flow of such cases. The policemen concerned, some of whom are also passport control officers, are apparently able to act as they please and to hold people in detention for an indefinite period while denying them access to legal assistance. Ways must be found of exposing what is
happening and of preventing it from continuing.
Work on this will continue this year.
. •,- . • • • • • • • . - - - ' • • • . • • . • . ' • . - .
20 THE BLACK SASH — August1985
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Repre violence
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Extracts taken f r o m t h e Johannesburg Advice Office Report for 1984
Cases arising from the unrest
These have been many and varied- It is very difficult to establish any coherent picture- The people who come to the advice office are the victims of repression by the apartheid system and the forces of Law and Order but they are also sometimes victims of coercion by opposition forces,
Mr T is the archetypal victim. He came to the office with head and hands horribly scarred and bound in medical supports. He had been quietly participating in a bus boycott in protest against increased fares and had decided himself to join with others in finding other means of transport to get to work. One morning while travelling out of the townships his taxi was stop- ped by police. All passengers were ordered out and on to a bus. Five blocks further on the bus was stop- ped by a picket. A petrol bomb was thrown in among
the passengers. Mr T was severely burned and will never lose his scars.
Mr Y was one of those affected by the Lekoa Town Council's decision to try to recover rents unpaid in protest against increases announced in the Vaal in September 1984, His employer summoned him and gave him a copy of the order from the Council order-
ing the firm to deduct the rent he owed from his wages. The employer asked his permission to deduct the money, Mr Y immediately resigned from the job.
He explained that if his rent was paid his house would be burnt down. We asked him if he personally knew anyone to whom this had happened- He said he knew three people.
Stayaway cases
November 5 and 6 were the days when there was a successful protest by thousands of people who stayed away from work. We have no doubt that most of those involved in the action did so willingly and of their own volition. However there were also casual- ites. Workers who were not unionised, illiterate people who could not read pamphlets or newspaper stories, who were caught up in events they could not understand, and who suffered for it,
A group of men from Bcnoni came to the office on November 8, They had all been employed on the
small Modder Bee mine. No accommodation was provided for them and they had to find their own lodgings in Daveyton township. All were migrant workers, most of them from Transkei. They came to the Black Sash because they had been discharged for failing to go to work on Monday and Tuesday.
They stated that they had tried to go to work as usual on Monday morning. They normally walked f~om the township to the mine. They were turned back by a picket armed with sticks and stones.
On Monday evening one of the group, Mr N saw a man with his ear sliced off. Another saw a man he knows as a factory worker with half an ear sliced off.
He spoke to him and was told he had been attacked coming home from work and his ear was sliced be- cause he had not stayed away.
On Tuesday morning the road was barricaded. The police were present and there was a good deal of tear gas. They did not go to work that day either.
They had no opinion about the stayaway because they said they did not know anything about it,
Seven women came to the office on the same day.
They had been employed in a factory and had also lost their jobs after they did not report for work on Mon- day and Tuesday. Their employer was a sympathetic person who had lost a new order when the first one was not delivered as promised on the Tuesday. He explained that 22 women had been involved in the stayaway and he had decided he had to retrench, not dismiss, 11 of them. When he told the workers of his decision they said he either kept them all on or they would all leave.
Three of the women live in Katlehong and said it had been impossible to leave the township at all be- cause of pickets and barricades. Two lived in Thokoza. One was turned back by pickets who told her 'You will not pass here. Go back'.
The others returned home after seeing a man with his ear cut off.
One, who lives in Mofolo, was turned back by pic- kets at the station, one of whom struck her sister on the head.
* Subsequent to the preparation of this article, the influx control regulation. Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act was amended by the Laws on Cooperation and Development Act of 1985. It came into effect on July 3 1985, extending black peoples* chances of getting rights to live and work in white areas.
Section 10 (1) (a) rights — People can now get rights under this section if they were born and have lived 'con- tinuously" in different prescribed areas, that is basically, black townships in white areas. The old requirement was that a person was born and have lived continuously in one particular prescribed area.
Section 10(1) <b> rights—Under the old law people got the right to live in a prescribed area and work in a white area if they could prove that they had either lived con-
tinuously in one particular prescribed area, or, worked continuously for one particular employer, for certain periods of time. This requirement was extended to cover continuous residence in different prescribed areas and the time was reduced from 15 to 10 years. Similarly, the
10 years continuous (lawful) employment qualification was extended to different employers but the time remains at 10 years.
The meaning of 'continuous' in this context Is not per- fectly clear.
THE BLACK SASH — August 1985 21
